Natasha Singer has the story at the Bits blog at the New York Times in
Tougher European Data Protection Measures Proposed by a Member of the European Parliament.
The new proposed regulations foresee a penalty that is destined to put the fear of God back into corporate board rooms. As Singer writes about the new draft regulation on the protection of citizens' data privacy:
Really, folks, what a much better way to finance government than the evil of taxation!"And it comes with a big stick: Companies that violated the rule would be liable to penalties of up to 2 percent of worldwide revenues."
I mean, if Apple can obtain a $ 1 billion patent infringement judgement for a PONG-reminiscent rubber-band-like software-programmed "bounce-back" and Carnegie Mellon a $1 billion judgement for a simple decoding of "signal-dependent functions" then what is to keep governments from filling their tills with innovative -- yea, indeed, patent-protection worthy -- ideas for financing all the services that taxpayers need and want but complain about as being unwillingly financed via taxation.
Every time one of these companies misuses YOUR data for profit - WHAM! - up to 2% of their worldwide revenues goes into government ownership. Let us be frank. That is virtually a financial lock and the end of financial woes for the cash-strapped governments of the world -- and that seems to be nearly all of them.
If only ....
Sadly, reality will strike, and commercial interests will continue to exploit OUR data more and more for THEIR profit.
Why is it that WE, the PEOPLE, permit that?
